Games designers and academics to create video games for hospitalised children

Academics, games designers and hospital play specialists are
coming together to explore the ways in which video games can help
improve the lives of hospitalised children, with the ultimate goal
of designing games tailored to their specific needs.

"Hospitalised children will be isolated from other kinds
of play that they would otherwise enjoy"

Elizabeth
Wood, Sheffield University

"As far as we are aware this is a new area for video game
design," project lead and chair in Education at Sheffield
University Elizabeth Wood told Wired.co.uk. "Currently, UK hospital
play tends to be based on 'traditional' toys and games, with
limited innovation in digital play, for example, children using
tablets or smartphones brought in by family visitors to access
video games designed for general audiences. We've identified apps
designed for hospitalised children to communicate pain levels and
other symptoms to doctors and their care team. These apps are
useful, but focus on what adults need to know from children."

"We believe that hospitalised children will be isolated from
other kinds of play that they would otherwise enjoy. These might be
physical play with friends and family, playground play, play in
nature to name a few. As a network we aim to explore ways this
could be responded to in video game production."

"Children need to connect playfully with friends and
families when confined to hospital"

Elizabeth
Wood, Sheffield University

The idea came about when Wood and colleague Dylan Yamada-Rice
attended the Children's Media
Conference and realised "much more could be done to combine
expertise between academic and industry knowledge". After meeting
play specialists from the Sheffield Children's Hospital, Wood tells
us she startings thinking about the ways in which their combined
knowledge could help make a difference in the lives of children
hospitalised for long or repeated periods of time. Although the UK
games industry continues to grow, Wood notes that without outside
expertise those behind the games might totally miss the mark when
it comes to designing for children with different needs or
capabilities, and particularly their need "to connect playfully
with friends and families when confined to hospital".

"We are interested in exploring the crossovers between
children's online, offline and traditional play and how these might
be used to address some of the play activities they miss when in
hospital," says Wood.

Clinical studies have in the past demonstrated the efficacy of
these different types of play in actually improving the wellbeing
of young patients. Video game trials have only fairly recently been
carried out in a hospital context, but already there is plenty of
proof for further exploration.

In a 2005 study, for instnace, virtual reality games were investigated
for their potential in alleviating pain in children with severe
burn injuries. VR was chosen for its "engrossing" nature, with
subjects allowed to play during dressing changes, one of the most
distressing stages of recovery. Painkillers cannot totally
eradicate the pain, but when administered in conjunction with VR,
the study leaders found it significantly reduced the child's
perception of pain, from an average score of 4.1 among seven
subjects to 1.3, while parents and physicians noted the children
were far calmer. They propose fewer painkillers could be used less
as a result.

"Video games may facilitate therapeutic relationships,
complement the psychological assessment of youth by evaluating
cognitive skills, and elaborate and clarify conflicts during the
therapy process"

Review General Psychology
journal

Even earlier, a paper in the 2002 journal of Children's Health Care explored
how an immersive VR environment called Starbright World
(SBW) could be used to help seriously ill children come to
terms with their situation by learning about their condition
through games or communicating with other children via
SBW's online community. Thirty-two children took part, 78
percent of whom had HIV. The children themselves were found to be
"marginally less worried", "significantly more willing to return to
hospital for treatment" and "significantly less lonely" after using
the game in the hospital context. Parents noted that they were less
withdrawn and anxious, and more energetic

Meanwhile, the psychological benefits of this type of play were
noted in a 2010 paper in Review General Psychology.
"Recent experience suggests that video games may facilitate
therapeutic relationships, complement the psychological assessment
of youth by evaluating cognitive skills, and elaborate and clarify
conflicts during the therapy process," write the authors, who
conclude "future collaborations between clinicians and video game
developers may produce specific games to be used in
psychotherapy".

In the US, video games in hospitals seem fairly widespread in
comparison to the UK and there is even a games industry charity, Child's Play, which
allows cash contributions or enables people to send an item from a
hospital's wish list. Video games in hospitals often tend to be
mainly aimed specifically at teens to help them socialise with
other children though, and rely on them being physically able to go
to a particular room to play. One interesting example however, is
at the Wolfson Children's Hospital in Florida where "Child Life"
specialists help youngsters engage in play. In the Jaguars Den
translucent colour-changing screens hang from walls, while
alongside XBox 360 consoles children can video conference on PCs
with patients in other children's hospitals across the globe, as
well as family and friends.

One games maker Wood and Yamada-Rice plan to work with, Stripey Design, has
already explored the boundaries between online and offline play, so
seemed like a perfect fit. Although VR has already been
demonstrated as a great tool for children in hospitals, in the burn
study it was used for total immersion and thus total distraction
from the physically unpleasant aspects of injury. Total immersion
is not always going to be called for though -- the idea is to
enhance the child's overall wellbeing, and that would perhaps not
include encouraging their total distraction away from the real
world. Thus, the interconnect between their offline and online
world is key.

Stripey Design's Squiggle Fish
app encourages the child to draw a fish on a piece of paper.
Then, after taking a photo of it using an iPad, it will spring to
life and swim around an animated underwater world in the app. Other
collaborators include Tutti
Frutti, a theatre group that specialises in "highly visual and
physical storytelling" for very young children, and Distinctive Games, an
independent studio.

It would be interesting to see some bigger names on board --
Microsoft Game Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe are,
for instance, collaborating on another of the AHRC-funded networks. That
network is being partly run by the V&A and is set to develop
ideas for portraying innovation in games in museums. It makes sense
that when it comes to their back catalogues being archived, the
games giants would want to have a say. Equally, independent studios
will probably have a lot more of the creative freedom and low-cost
prototype development that would be necessary for bringing games to
hospitals sooner rather than later for testing.

The team is not looking to replicate anything that has been done
before, so again, independent games makers are probably the way to
go. For instance, Wood cited Melbourne Children's Hospital as an
unusual example of how the offline and online world can be brought
together with great results. Within the confines of the hospital
there is a meerkat enclosure and an aquarium. Both can be accessed
virtually as well via the accompanying Create Explore Learn app
which features famous artworks inspired by fish that can be
stitched together to create new artworks, and a make-your-own
meerkat function with storyboards that can see your curious
creatures in space or at a tea party.

"As a result at this stage we are very open about what the final
game design might look like," admits Wood, since experts from such
disparate fields have never been brought together in quite this way
to freely explore themes and ideas.

A series of three workshops (one for each field) will facilitate
the conversation from January 2014, with the final ideas presented
in the fourth workshop then hopefully interpreted by students at
the Royal College of Art studying for the MA in Information
Experience Design (this part of the plan is still pending). "Each
workshop will additionally invite other key players to these fields
such as animators who describe physical illness, and play
specialists from hospitals overseas," adds Wood.

Wired.co.uk will keep in touch with Wood and co and update
you as the workshops progress.